


Help Me Carry My Burdens, and I'll Let You Rub My Belly

by Midorisakura (Calacious)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Belly Kink, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Mpreg, Multiple Universes, Oviposition, Prompt Fill, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-27 03:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Midorisakura
Summary: Lance is attacked while visiting another planet, and Shiro feels terrible about his reaction to it, but he can't help how he feels.





	1. The Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following anonymous prompt: One of the male paladins gets knocked up by an alien tentacle monster (can be consensual or non-consensual, your choice!) and one of the other paladins really, really likes the way the pregnant paladin's stomach looks and gets more and more turned on by it the bigger it gets.
> 
> While this story features rape and the aftermath of rape, the rape is off-screen and is not detailed.
> 
> Each chapter jumps ahead in time. This is how the story wanted to be written. I may or may not fill in the blanks at a later time.

Shiro’s palms are sweaty, and his mouth is dry, and he can’t help casting a quick, furtive gander at Lance’s swollen belly. It’s the fifth, or hundredth (who’s counting?), look he’s had at the younger man’s protruding stomach, and he can’t seem to get enough of it. 

He’s just started showing. 

Knowing that Lance’s body is playing host to the hybrid offspring of an alien from the planet that they’d visited a few months ago is wreaking a strange kind of havoc on Shiro’s mind. He should be horrified, even angry on the younger man’s behalf, because Lance is hurting, and he’s going through something that no one should ever have to go through. He’s not horrified, though. If anything, he’s oddly aroused.

Before traveling to space, Shiro had never really given a pregnant woman’s belly a second glance, but now, he finds himself oddly obsessed with the way that Lance’s belly is swelling with the tentacled alien’s deposited ovum.   


It’s insane. 

Maybe he’s insane. 

There’s a flutter in his stomach, and Shiro has to cough and turn sideways to hide the reaction of his poorly neglected, currently traitorous, manhood as it stirs in interest when Lance’s shirt rides up and exposes the young man’s small belly bump. 

_ ‘Deposited wombs can house up to three zygotes,’ _ he remembers the alien doctor telling them, in its strange multi-toned voice (it had two mouths, on either side of its football shaped head, and spoke out of them simultaneously). 

The Orang Gurita were an intersexual species, though when they (on the few occasions that it has happened -- Lance being one of a handful of times) ‘mate’ with non-Orang Gurita they typically choose the male of the ‘alien’ species, believing the male of the species to be stronger and more capable of carrying any offspring that may result from their ‘coupling’. Shiro idly wonders if maybe he should have explained to the doctor that they’d have better chances of having offspring carried to full term with females.

_ Is there one, two, or three hybrid embryos nesting in there? _ Shiro wonders as he casts another sidelong look at Lance’s belly.  _ If there are three, how big will Lance get? Will his armor stretch to accommodate the changes to his body? Will he still be able to fight when he’s five, six, eight months along? Will we still be able to form Voltron? _

He wonders if Lance will have stretch marks, and has to close his eyes to keep from watching Lance rub at the tiny lump. It’s no bigger than a softball at the moment, and is sitting rather low in Lance’s belly. If the current size is any indication, Shiro has to assume that Lance only has one hybrid alien to worry about.

Thanks to the alien doctor, who’d apologized profusely for the actions of the young alien, who, in the throes of its first heat, had taken Lance and  _ ‘had its way with him’ _ , Shiro knows that Lance should develop a delivery ‘hatch’ just below his belly when it’s time for the baby (or babies as the case may be) to be born. If all works right (which is not at all certain) then the fully developed fetus, or fetuses, should create an opening within the hatch when it is time for delivery.

Lance, however, does not share the same anatomy of the typical host of these types of wombs and embryos. Most hosts  _ are  _ males, but most also have bodies that can rearrange themselves to accommodate the deposited womb as it adjusts to the growth of the embryos it’s carrying. Lance’s body might not be able to do that sufficiently. He could die a horrible, painful death if the womb grows too large for him and his body is unable to accommodate it.

Shiro feels sick, even as he takes another look at Lance’s belly and admires the way that the small baby bump stretches across the young man’s olive-toned skin. He coughs, and looks away, presses the heel of his palm against his stupid cock, willing it to stay down where it belongs.

They’d asked for the womb to be removed as soon as the doctor had told them about it, but because of the time that had passed between the fertilization of the egg, or eggs, the deposit of the womb within Lance, and the time that Lance was found, the doctor (all smiling apologies that Shiro had wanted to tear off its oblong-shaped face) informed them that it was unable to remove the womb without causing irreversible damage (or death) to the ‘host’. Keith had almost taken a dagger to the overly jovial doctor’s undulating throat when Lance had made a strangled sound and given them a stricken look, eyes huge in a face that had gone gaunt and pale in the time that he’d been away from them. 

The doctor (teeth showing in its delight) had also informed them that delivery, when it comes in about ten ‘months’ (give or take two months, roughly translated into Earth terms; the doctor had used some other word that escapes Shiro), would be painful, not at all unlike being torn in half, or burned alive, and Lance may or may not heal from it on his own. With their own kind, healing occurs within a few hours of delivery and is aided by the secretions made by the womb as it dissolves inside of the host. 

Lance, however, is human, not an Orang Gurita, or any of the other alien species ‘accidentally’ impregnated by maturing adolescents lost in a hormonal fugue. There’s no telling what will happen once the baby, or babies, slice through the womb and the wall of his abdomen to make their way out of him. The doctor had laughingly (in a nervous kind of way) informed them that some of the hosts who were humanoid did not, in fact, survive the birthing process, and the offspring hadn’t lasted long after the death of their hosts either.

Shiro hopes that, when the time comes, if Lance survives that long, the healing pods will be able to help, should he need them.

They have no idea what the birthing process will be like for Lance, which is one of the reasons why the Castle of Lions is no longer situated on that planet (their lack of true apology for what Lance suffered aside -- apparently such violations are common among their kind, and often lead to mated pairings, which on their own planet, within their own species is encouraged), but traveling toward a planet (located in a remote galaxy) renowned for its medical facilities, and ability to handle circumstances like this (Lance is not the first individual to be knocked up by an alien of a different species from his own, and he likely will not be the last).

The child, or children, when born, will be staying with them, because the Orang Gurita do not take kindly to interspecies relationships, or their offspring (nevermind the fact that they do not take proper precautions to protect visitors from those of their kind in ruts, nor do they discourage the interspecies coupling). The offspring would either be killed outright, or allowed to live for a time and studied for science, dismemberment being the ultimate fate for such an ‘abomination’. 

Shiro thinks that, if that is the case, then visiting aliens should be informed of the dangers of being anywhere in the vicinity of a young adolescent who is coming of age, or that the rutting teens should be kept away from public places. Lance had merely been walking through an open air market, looking at the different wares and foods available for trade, when he’d been knocked unconscious and carried off -- to a cave of all places.

Coran is already scurrying about, readying the castle for the birth of the hybrid offspring. Decidedly not thinking about the worst outcome, he’s been overly cheerful and encouraging, hemming and hawing about this and that, a determined gleam in his eye, and a soft smile gracing his lips. Every visit to a friendly planet gives Coran, and Hunk, opportunities to trade for goods that they think the offspring, and Lance, will need once the baby/ies are delivered. Clothing, food, diapers, toys...

It’s little more than a distraction. A way to keep them from thinking the worst. Lance could die.

He’s peaked looking and rarely cracks a smile anymore. Shiro misses Lance’s jokes and his failed attempts at flirting. He misses the younger man’s vivacity and wonders if it will ever return.

Shiro doesn’t have the details of what happened to Lance during the ten days that he was missing; Lance hasn’t uttered a single word about it. Refuses to even acknowledge questions that others raise about it. Suffice to say, whatever happened was traumatic, and it left Lance bloodied, bruised, and with no small amount of nightmares. 

Even now, as Lance absentmindedly rubs his belly, he’s got a haunted, faraway look in his eyes, and Shiro wonders if he’s reliving whatever horror had been visited upon his body by the larger, sexually maturing alien. Shiro’s relived many of his own worst moments spent in captivity with the Galra, often playing out in his mind right in the middle of a quiet meal, or in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t wish that on any of them. 

“Lance.” Hunk catches his friend’s hand in his own, holds it to keep Lance from his mindless rubbing, and Shiro wishes he could do that, that he could offer the comfort to Lance that comes so easily to Hunk. “How’re you doing?”

Lance blinks, and takes a shuddering breath, as though he’d stopped breathing and Hunk’s words have reminded him of the need to take in air. He runs his unoccupied hand over his face and licks his lips. 

“Um...what?” Lance’s voice is too soft, and he’s got a puzzled look on his face.

Shiro misses how loud and vibrant the boy used to be, and wishes that he could return to that planet and rip the offending tentacles off of the Orang Gurita that had hurt Lance. Allura hadn’t allowed them time enough to retaliate, though her own diplomatic tone had been far cooler than usual, and she had not brokered a treaty with them either. 

“Are you okay?” Hunk repeats, quietly, carefully, as though fearful of spooking his best friend.

Lance frowns, and waves a hand in front of his face, offers a smile that’s a mere ghost of the ones that he used to give them. He nods, a quick little jerk of his head. “I’m fine.”

“Bull,” Keith says. His eyes are hard, glittering angrily in the dim lighting of the castle’s dining room, his cheeks flush with what is no doubt anger, knuckles white from the tight grip he’s got on his spoon. 

Lance scowls in return, and shakes his head, pushes his untouched plate of food away, and pulls his hand away from Hunk’s; tugs at his hair. “Fine, I’m not fine. That make you happy?”

“It’s okay not to be fine,” Pidge offers in a small voice, she looks at Lance over the top of her glasses, as though fearful of looking him directly in the eye.

Lance is breathing hard, and his eyes are watery, hands balled into fists, belly bump heaving with every breath that he takes. He looks like he’s going to either burst into tears or into a riot of angry words. Either reaction would be welcome. Instead, he takes a deep breath and schools his features, leans back and spreads his fingers out on top of the table.

“I’m okay,” Lance says. “For someone who has a freak growing inside of him.”

It makes Shiro sick. 

All of it. 

His strange obsession with Lance’s growing belly. 

The way the others are walking around on eggshells around Lance, or showering him with overly saccharine attention. 

Coran and Hunk’s cheerful preparation for the presence of Lance’s little one(s). 

Allura’s feigned ambivalence. 

Keith’s unveiled anger, simmering beneath the surface like an active volcano about to burst. 

The constant roar of the black lion in the back of his mind, requesting, no, _ demanding, _ vengeance. Demanding that Shiro step up and take care of Blue’s paladin. 

And the blue lion’s faint voice, echoing the demands of her leader’s, a subvocal, rumbling buzz that doesn’t give Shiro a moment’s rest, even when he attempts to sleep.

“Look,” Keith says, nostrils flaring, cheeks red with anger. “None of this,” he gestures toward Lance’s still exposed belly, “is  _ our _ fault.”

Lance’s jaw clenches, and takes a few deep breaths. “No, it’s not. It’s not your fault. It’s not even that...that...”   


“Rapist,” Pidge says, scowling darkly. Her hands are fisted on the table, and she’s got a vengeful look in her eyes. “He, it, whatever, violated your body. I don’t care what the Orang Gurita called it, the excuses that they gave for what happened to you, it was rape.”

Lance pales, and his breathing takes on a wheezing quality that’s more than a little alarming, and Shiro is out of his seat, kneeling beside Lance, resting a hand on the younger man’s leg before he fully registers that he’s moved. There are tears -- the first that he can remember seeing since the incident -- the rape as Pidge so baldly called it -- rolling down Lance’s cheeks and he’s curling in on himself, and Shiro has no fucking clue what it is that he’s supposed to do now.

_ Comfort him _ , the words, a low, almost rumbling sound that sits at the base of his skull, come to him, and he knows, without having to ask, that they’re coming from both the blue and black lions. 

Shiro can’t remember the last time he’d truly comforted someone. He’d had no time for it when he’d been fighting for the entertainment of the Galra. He can’t recall knowing anyone who’d been raped before. It’s such a hard, ugly, terrifying word, and Shiro hates that he’s so frightened by it.

Lance’s crying is quiet, just a smearing of snot and tears, and sobs that shake his much too thin shoulders. Shiro stops thinking, and simply pulls the sobbing boy into his arms, settles him awkwardly in his lap on the floor, and holds him and rocks him, rubs a hand over his back, and lets Lance sob into his chest. 

He’s not even aware that he’s saying anything until Hunk’s voice joins his in a litany of whispered words of comfort and promise and love. Hunk’s hand joins Shiro’s in caressing Lance’s shuddering back, and Pidge is a warm presence to the right of Shiro, knee touching his; Keith is on their left, not touching, his mouth downturned in a look of angry sorrow, hands clenched into fists in his lap. 

Coran is standing at his seat, frozen in place as though debating whether or not to join them; there’s a look of pain on his face, his mask of feigned cheerfulness gone. His love for Lance is clearer in that moment than it has been at any other in their time together.

A flurry of emotions -- pride, sorrow, anger, love, hopelessness, conviction -- sweep across Allura’s face as she watches from where she’s kneeling feet away from the group huddled around Lance, hands held tightly together in front of her. Unsure of her place among the paladins, Allura makes no further move to join them, just offers her quiet support in kneeling on the floor with them.

“I told it to stop,” Lance whispers in a choked voice filled with anguish. “I...I begged, and...and I...I tried to get away, I tried, but, but, it was... it didn’t stop, and I...I was too weak. It hurt. It never stopped hurting. I thought, I thought I was going to...to die, and then, when I didn’t, and it didn’t stop, I wanted to. I wanted to die,” Lance confesses, hands fisting Shiro’s shirt, face buried against Shiro’s shoulder.

Lance’s crying is no longer quiet. It’s filled with anguish and pain, and a sense of deep loss that makes Shiro’s stomach clench in sympathy. He holds Lance tighter, presses a kiss to the top of Lance’s head, and pours everything he has into comforting the boy in his arms.

“I didn’t even flirt with it,” Lance says, words watery, distraught. “I’ve never even...I...I was a...a virgin.”

Shiro presses Lance’s face into his shoulder, hugging him as though it will somehow make up for what happened. “I’m sorry,” he says, words whispered into Lance’s ear. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t stop what happened to you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Keith says, voice subdued as he reaches out and lays a hand on Lance’s shoulder, keeping it there even when the other boy flinches. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier. I just...I wanted to kill it for what it did to you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry I failed you.”

Lance sobs harder, louder, and he clings to Shiro as though clinging to a life preserver, pouring out his fear, his anger, his pain, his sorrow until he cries himself out. It feels like they’ve been sitting on the dining room floor for days by the time that Lance goes limp and heavy in his arms, not yet asleep, but quieter, breath coming in little hitches that shake the both of them. 

“Sorry,” Lance mumbles, and he tries to push away from Shiro’s grip, but Shiro doesn’t let go. 

He can’t let go. 

Running his fingers through Lance’s sweaty hair, he merely adjusts his hold on the younger man and Lance sags against him, eyes fluttering as he fights off sleep he’s no doubt afraid to even enter. 

“It’s okay, Lance,” Shiro whispers. “I’ve got you now. You can sleep.” He leaves out the,  _ I’ll chase away your nightmares _ , hoping that it’s understood.

Shiro can hear the lions humming their approval in the back of his mind. It’s comforting. 

Coran is suddenly standing in front of them, a sad smile on his face. “Perhaps you should bring Lance back to your quarters,” he suggests. 

Allura nods, and claps her hands together to move all of them into action. “He needs sleep, and though I know that none of us wants to think about this, his body clearly underwent a change within the last few days,” she gestures toward Lance’s still uncovered belly, “he cannot afford to keep losing sleep to nightmares. Not now.”

“We could set up a nightmare watch rotation,” Hunk says, voice filled with hope and subdued excitement. “You know, so that none of us is sleep-deprived.” He casts a furtive look at Shiro and then looks to Allura for approval. 

Allura nods. “That is a very sound idea,” she says, and gives Hunk a smile. “Good thinking, paladin.”

Hunk blushes and looks to Shiro, hope warring with fear in his eyes until Shiro nods, though the idea of letting someone else take care of Lance doesn’t sit right with him, and he has no idea why. He’s never felt this way about anyone before. It’s unnerving. 

“Good idea, Hunk,” Shiro says with far more enthusiasm than he feels. He ignores the thoughtful looks that Keith is shooting him, and the calculating ones that Pidge is casting toward him and Lance as he hoists Lance up into his arms and carries him back to his room. 

Once he’s got Lance settled into his bed on a nest of blankets and pillows, Shiro stands back and simply surveys what it is that he’s done. It’s rather ridiculous, and he feels foolish, especially when his gaze is summarily caught up in Lance’s baby bump, and his hand (the human one) fairly itches to touch it. 

Shiro runs his stupid hand through his hair, and silently berates himself for his aberrant reaction to what Lance is going through. The boy had just wept himself to sleep in his arms, for goodness’ sake, he shouldn’t find himself turned on by the sight of the boy lying in his bed, baby bump exposed for him to ogle at. 

Shiro sits on the edge of his bed and watches Lance’s chest rise and fall in regular intervals. He wonders when Lance last slept so soundly, if his current sleep will be disturbed by a nightmare, or if his crying jag, and subsequent outpouring, will act like a balm, and keep the nightmares at bay. He hopes so, but if it doesn’t, he’s here and will fight whatever nightmare might dare to disturb Lance’s sleep.

Lost in thought, Shiro isn’t even aware that his human hand finds its way (seemingly of its own accord) to rest on Lance’s taut, round belly, that his thumb starts up a soothing rubbing motion that makes Lance take a shuddering breath, and sink deeper into sleep. 


	2. Armchairs are no Substitute for Shiro's Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance hates this. He hates that he can't see his feet. He hates that he has to pee like every five minutes. But most of all, he hates the pain of the 'womb expansions'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter jumps a few months ahead in time. Hopefully it is not too jarring. If the muse is cooperative, and if people are interested, I may write some of the missing scenes for a companion piece for this story. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, and to those who let me know that they have enjoyed what I've written so far. Mahalo nui loa

“Oomph,” Lance groans as he flops down into the reclining armchair.

It’s not the prettiest looking thing, but it’s comfortable, and it works well, and it eases some of the strain on Lance’s knees, lower back and ankles. Keith had found it on one of the planets that they’d stopped at to help liberate from the Galra as they made their way across the galaxy to find medical help for Lance. Hunk had helped Keith lug it back to the castle and set it up in what had been dubbed the ‘cozy room’ or the ‘hangout place’ by the paladins.

Lance considers it his safe haven. He doesn't have dark nightmares about being held down, trapped, unable to move, or see...while sitting in the tattered, olive colored armchair, surrounded by his friends.

Sitting in the armchair, taking some of the weight of his swelling stomach off of his knees and feet, Lance can almost stop being reminded of what had happened to him, and smile and joke like he used to. Almost. Things are not the same now. Lance doubts that they'll ever be the same again. He doesn’t see the universe the same way anymore. It’s not a vast, adventurous place to explore. Instead, it’s grown dark and Lance fears unknown dangers lurking around every corner. He hates this.

Lance misses not being afraid. He misses his old, just this side of too skinny, body; being able to go for more than an hour or two without having to take a piss; not getting physically ill whenever he smells something meat-like being cooked.

He misses being scolded for oversleeping, being able to sleep on his stomach, being able to see his feet properly without having to prop them up on something.

Lance misses not having everyone worried about him. He misses being just an ordinary paladin fighting for good in the face of evil, even if he’d felt as though the others would be fine without him, that he was the least important person on the team.

His belly twinges, and Lance grimaces in pain. He's going through another of what Coran -- with the aid of several medical texts, a conference with a two-headed, yak-like alien doctor on the planet they're hoping to get to before the babies growing inside of Lance need to make a quick exit, and a bazillion medical exams -- calls a “womb expansion” and, as the last two have, it hurts, more than anything Lance has experienced in his lifetime, including what he’s taken to dubbing, ‘the incident’, in spite of Pidge’s insistence that he call it what it is -- rape.

His stomach is already the size of a basketball, and is sporting a spider webbing design of ugly stretch marks.  Lance isn’t sure how many more “womb expansions” his body can take. As it is, he feels like his stomach is a balloon that’s about to pop.

“You okay, Lance?” Hunk hurries to his side, and Lance grabs onto his best friend's hand and squeezes the life out of it.

The muscles of his abdomen are being torn, his ribs bruised, and his bladder crushed -- again, to make room for the hybrids growing inside of him. He wonders if, like Ripley, on _Alien_ , the alien spawn are going to burst right out of him, claws and sharp teeth tearing him apart from the inside out. It might almost be a relief from this drawn out agony he has to go through every few weeks when the hybrids grow and his body needs to make room to accommodate their growth spurts.

“It's okay,” Hunk says, voice filled with sympathy. “You're going to be okay. Just, breathe. You’ve got this, buddy.”

The hand that Lance is not currently crushing with his own is running through Lance's sweaty hair. Tears of pain stream down Lance's face, and he doesn't give a crap about how weak they make him look. His body was not designed for this shit, no matter what Coran and his consultants have said about how adaptable the ‘youthful’ human body is.

“I hate this,” Lance growls. “I hate it.”

He’s panting through the pain that just won’t seem to let up, and knows that, if it’s one of the smaller growth spurts (which had happened at the beginning of this disaster) the pain will last only a few minutes, though his body will ache for days afterward. If it’s a bigger growth spurt, which have been happening more and more lately, the pain will last for hours, and the overall body aches for a week, maybe longer. The exhaustion will be overwhelming as well.

There’s a wave of intense, burning pain, and Lance bites his lip, crushes Hunk’s hand hard enough to leave bruises, but Hunk doesn’t pull away, if anything he grips Lance’s hand tighter himself. Hunk places a hand on Lance’s shifting, growing belly and rubs, something that usually helps ease some of the pain. Lost in unbearable pain, Lance can barely feel it this time.

“I think we need Coran,” Hunk says. “This is...there’s something...I think there’s something wrong.”

“No, don’t, don’t leave me. I’ll be fine,” Lance says, teeth gritting with the pain. “Please.”

“I, Lance, I don’t know what to do,” Hunk says.

“Just...keep doing what you’re doing,” Lance says. “It’s helping, really.”

He musters a smile for his friend, and takes as deep a breath as he can, wincing when he can feel his ribs shifting as the womb expands. He knows that, eventually, when he’s closer to delivering the babies (there are three), the womb will ‘drop’, which will cause other problems that he’d rather not think about right now, but he almost wishes that it would drop now, rather than later, because it’s getting damn hard to get a deep breath, and he's afraid that his ribs are going to crack, or worse, break, under the strain of the expansions.

There are differences, Coran had told him a little too cheerfully a few weeks ago, between male and female pregnancy. Differences between the development of Orang Gurita offspring and human, and there was no telling what kind of differences there will be for Lance who is bearing three hybrid Human-Orang Gurita offspring in an Orang Gurita womb that had somehow incorporated some of Lance’s DNA when it had been formed, before it had been implanted within his body.

Lance only has vague, nightmarish recollections of what had happened while he’d been in that cave with the alien who’d...violated...him. He can’t seem to remember anything clearly. It’s all dark, and shadowed, and filled with red hot pain.

There's a reason human females are the ones who have babies on Earth. Their bodies are built for it. Male bodies, regardless of the 'modifications’ that the Orang Gurita had made when it had implanted the womb and embryos inside of Lance, just weren't built to house mini-humans (which is what Hunk had taken to calling the hybrids).

Coran calls them little ‘bundles of joy’. Allura calls them what they are, hybrids.

Lance has stopped calling them, freaks, and has kind of sort of named them, Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3. He may or may not keep those names for them when they’re born.

The babies could be born as true mixes, or having more Orang Gurita features than human, or having mostly human features, or Lance could have one of each type of manifestation. It’s too early to tell. Lance isn't sure what he wants, if he wants them at all. It wasn’t as if he’d been given a choice. The Orang Gurita had taken him, and done terrible things to him, and then it had left him with a parting gift that Lance hadn’t wanted.

The Orang Gurita are, at least to Lance, an odd looking species of alien with their elongated, football-shaped heads, six eyes, two mouths, furry bodies that remind Lance of an orangutan, but they walk around on two sets of paired tentacles which seem to serve a number of purposes. They have two ‘arms’ and hands with opposable thumbs, but seem to prefer to use their tentacles when working with something delicate as their arms are a little on the short side (T-Rex meet Jabba the Hut, Harry Potter's giant squid, and “Family Guy's” Stewie, but with a lot more fur).

Additionally, the Orang Gurita are covered in shaggy green fur, they've got brown ears, orange eyes with blue pupils, and the suckers on their tentacles are a bright red, purple, or pink in color. There are rotating hooks on the end of their tentacles, which enable them to grab and hold their prey (something of which Lance has intimate knowledge).

Their bright pink noses remind Lance of cats, their ears of dogs. They are the most mismatched species of alien that Lance has ever had the displeasure of meeting. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if all three of the offspring look like the other contributor to their DNA, and isn’t sure that he wants anything to do with them even if they don’t take after it in looks or tendencies. Lance isn't sure if he can grow to love something like that, even if it does share half his DNA.

“Lance?” Hunk’s palm is hovering just above Lance's protruding belly.

“Mhm?” Lance cracks open an eye, and presses a palm to his belly bulge. It's hard as a rock, and actually shifts beneath his hand, freaking him out just a little.

“That's not normal, is it?” Hunk asks, eyes wide as he looks at the movement going on beneath the taut skin of Lance's stomach.

“Actually, that's to be expected.” The suddenness of Coran’s voice as the Altean enters the room startles them, and Lance scowls at the Altean, and then grimaces in pain as the bulge in his stomach shifts again. Coran's small smile does not falter, though, and he looks to Lance, eyes begging for permission to touch.

Sighing and panting through the pain, Lance nods, and Coran's smile grows as he touches Lance's stomach. The bulge seems to press up into the touch and the Altean's eyebrows raise, and his mustache twitches.

“Oh, my,” Coran exclaims. “That's, that's simply extraordinary.” There's awe in his voice, and Lance wishes that he could share in even just a small portion of that sentiment, but he can't seem to muster anything but fear, trepidation, or absolute terror when he thinks of what's growing inside of him. And knowing that all three of those feelings are merely different levels of the same underlying feeling doesn't help at all.

“What's extraordinary?” Shiro steps into the room, and Lance groans. Just what he needs, his fearless leader to witness him writhing in pain, again. As if he hadn't humiliated himself enough earlier that day by bursting into tears when Shiro had told him to rest instead of sparring after breakfast. Uncontrollable emotions were just another added bonus to this unexpected pregnancy, and the hormones that had been implanted into him by the Orang Gurita. Something that Lance could definitely live without.

“The offspring that Lance is carrying are starting to show signs of growth development,” Coran says, a soft smile gracing his lips, mustache twitching with his delight. “They are moving.”

“Oh,” Hunk says, eyes going wide, lips quirking upward. “That’s so cool.” He gives Lance an apologetic look.

“It hurts,” Lance says, grimacing as another wave of pain accompanies the movement of Things 1, 2, and 3.

“It’s not the movement of the offspring which is causing you discomfort, it’s the womb expanding,” Coran says, and he takes one of Lance’s hands, places it on Lance’s belly, and presses down on it. “Feel that?”

Lance feels something like a mini fist bump poke at the palm of his hand through his belly, and the pain almost seems to subside in that moment. His heart stops and starts when he feels the movement again, a bump ba bump bump. He isn’t sure how to feel, and blinks as he looks down at his undulating stomach, an almost smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“May I?” Shiro says, eyes locked on Lance’s belly as he sidles up to them.

Grimacing as another wave of pain courses through his body, Lance nods and lets Coran capture his hand in a strong grip. Shiro’s hand spans the growing bump of Lance’s stomach. It’s warm and oddly soothing, the pain ebbs a little, and Lance stares down at Shiro’s hand. There are scars on the back of it, but the palm of Shiro’s hand, for all of its strength, is oddly soft and comforting.

There’s a goofy half-smile on Shiro’s face, lips slightly parted, and his eyes are filled with wonder as he feels the hybrid babies push up against the palm of his hand.

“They’re really kicking up a storm,” he says, voice gentle. He chuckles. “You might have the start of a soccer team in there.”

Lance groans at the thought of it, though his heart lifts at the wistful tone of Shiro’s voice, and for the first time since all of this started, Lance starts to think that maybe he _can_ make it through all of this, and that maybe he'll be able to feel something other than fear of and for the hybrids that he's carrying.

Shiro’s eyes raise to meet his, concern overriding his obvious joy in the moment. “Are you alright?”

Swallowing, Lance nods, and bites his lip as unbearable pain suddenly rips through his stomach. The pain is so intense that he can't even scream. It's hard to breathe. He can taste copper on his tongue, and knows that he's bitten straight through his bottom lip.

The world tilts, and dips, and Lance has to close his eyes against the dizzying sensations that accompany being lifted and carried out of the cozy room by Shiro. In spite of the pain that he’s in, Lance can’t help feeling a little better being in Shiro’s arms, and that thought scares him. Since when has being in Shiro’s arms become so comfortable?


	3. Checkup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally reach the healing planet. Lance gets a much needed checkup. Shiro and the others wait (not so patiently) for news on Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another jump in time. Hope it isn't too jarring.
> 
> Much mahalos to those who left comments. Comments are encouraging.

Shiro sighs and runs a hand through his hair. It's a little too long, but the last time he’d helped Lance through a nightmare, Lance had twined his fingers in Shiro’s hair. It seemed to comfort him when nothing else did. Shiro was willing to make a few sacrifices in his appearance for Lance’s sake.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Pidge says, halting Shiro’s pacing midstep. “Coran, Allura and Dr. Venlighed will take good care of Lance.” There’s a little doubt in Pidge’s voice, a slight waver in speech that does little to ease the anxiety that’s gripping Shiro’s heart.

Turning on his heel, Shiro paces away from Pidge, and runs, quite literally, into Hunk and Keith who have taken up a vigil outside of the medical bay and are sitting cross-legged on the floor outside of the locked doors. He barely catches himself, and manages to stay upright by sheer force of will.

“Pacing isn’t going to help Lance,” Keith says. His eyes are trained on the door, and his mouth is set in a grim line.

“Come, sit with us,” Hunk offers, patting the floor beside him. He’s got his back to the wall, opposite the door, Keith right beside him.

Shiro declines the offer with a quick head shake, and resumes his pacing, careful to avoid the boys, and Pidge, who is now leaning up against the wall on the opposite end of the corridor, eyes plastered to the doors that hide Lance from them. They can’t hear a thing, and Lance has been in there with the doctor, Coran, Allura, and some alien nurse Shiro’s forgotten the name of, for several vargas now.

They’d finally landed on Planet Curación, just as Lance had finished undergoing what was determined to be his last large “womb expansion”. The specialist in interspecies pregnancies, a squat purple, yak-like alien with two heads, had agreed to take a look at Lance on the Castle of Lions rather than requiring that he disembark. The nurse who accompanied the two-headed alien had dark, scaly skin offset by yellow and blue neon speckles. The alien reminded Shiro of a lizard.

Planet Curación was entirely comprised of healers from four different universes. There was a spectrum of alien life-forms on the planet, and experts in all fields of medicine, some of which Shiro had never heard of before. The planet itself was nothing spectacular. There were a number of medical buildings surrounded by herbal gardens and not much else.

“It’s just a checkup,” Pidge offers, voice tight with controlled emotion.

“He’ll be fine,” Keith adds, voice strained, fists clenched at his side.

“Lance is a fighter,” Hunk says. “He’ll pull through this.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince Shiro and the others.

“Why is it taking so long?” Shiro wonders aloud, knowing that no one outside of the exam room has the answer to his question, but needing to ask it anyway.

“I’m sure that the doctor’s just being thorough,” Pidge says. “This is the first time he’s been examined at all since...you know.”

Shiro stops mid-stride, clenches his jaw and fists as he remembers the first few days after the attack on Lance. The healing pod had been out of the question, and the Orang Gurita doctor who’d examined Lance had been completely useless. Just thinking about it makes his Galra arm spark to life, so he pushes that thought aside and continues pacing the corridor.

“It shouldn’t be taking this long,” Shiro says. He’s standing in front of the door, palm pressing against it.

“Don’t do it,” Pidge says. “You heard what the doctor said. You don’t want to mess anything up, do you?”

“He needs someone in there who isn’t...” Shiro can’t even finish his thought, his heart aches too much for Lance, for what he’s going through, what he’s been through.

“He needs someone who’s there for him, and not the babies,” Hunk finishes quietly, standing.

Shiro nods, and, lips set in a determined line, presses his palm against the door, and waits impatiently for it to open, Hunk standing by his side. Pidge lingers in his peripheral, a faltering look in her eyes. Keith is still sitting, planted across from the door. Shiro can feel Keith’s eyes on his back, but he doesn’t turn around when the doors finally open.

Shiro enters the room with brisk, unfaltering strides, at first seeing nothing but Lance lying on his side on an exam table, in the center of the room. His body seems entirely too thin, and all color seems to have drained from him.

Lance’s back is to him, and, upon further inspection, Shiro can see the doctor and Coran’s heads bent over some kind of monitor. They’re talking quietly. Allura and the nurse are gathered nearby, listening attentively to whatever is being said, nodding every once in awhile. Lance is alone, though, shivering on the table, arms wrapped around himself as though offering comfort to himself. There’s a blue blanket covering the lower half of his body, but he’s got no shirt on, and Shiro’s heart races.

He’s at Lance’s side, rounding the exam table, taking one of Lance’s hands in his own, before he even realizes that he’s moved. There are dried tear tracks on Lance’s face, and his lips are trembling, his eyes closed. Before he can question what he’s doing, Shiro leans forward and kisses Lance’s cheek, and then his lips. The boy’s eyes startle open, and there’s a puzzled, questioning look in them that Shiro answers with another, less chaste kiss.

Shiro’s heart slams itself into his throat, and he tries to back away from the table, from Lance, but Lance grips his hand tighter, and whispers, “Don’t go. Please.”

Nodding, Shiro uses his other hand to brush through Lance’s hair. Lance’s eyes flutter closed, and then open.

“How are you?” Shiro whispers. He can sense Hunk hovering at his elbow, and wonders what he’s made of the kisses.

“Scared,” Lance says, voice hitching.

Shiro rubs his thumb over Lance’s knuckles, and runs his fingers through Lance’s hair. It’s the only bit of comfort that he can offer the boy now.

“You’re so brave,” he says.

Lance huffs out a self-deprecating bark of laughter and shakes his head. He grips Shiro’s hand, hard. “I’m not. I want them out of me, now. I...I don’t know what...I mean if...if I can,” Lance is cut off by hiccoughing sob, and he blinks back a fresh set of tears. “I don’t know if I can love them,” he whispers, voice hoarse and heavy with emotion.

“Oh, Lance,” Hunk says, rushing forward to cup his friend’s cheek with the palm of his hand and brush away a stray tear with the pad of his thumb. Shiro had almost forgotten that he was there.

Lance shudders, and his breathing takes on an almost wheezing quality, drawing the attention of the others in the room. Shiro can see Pidge and Keith silhouetted in the still open doorway.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the nurse says, advancing, but stopping when Allura places a hand on one of its shoulders.

“Lance needs them,” she says, voice quiet, and filled with something that makes Shiro’s heart plummet.

“Let them stay,” Dr. Venlighed says. “It might help calm him.”

Pidge and Keith take that as their cue to enter the room, and soon Lance is surrounded by the four of them, like an injured cat in the midst of a protective clowder. Lance’s breath steadies, and he blinks at each of them in turn, eyes filled with more emotions than Shiro can put a name to, save for that of relief.

“What’s going on?” Keith asks, hand on Lance’s shoulder, a sharp edge to his voice. “How come you haven’t come to tell any of us what’s going on yet? What’s wrong with Lance?”

Lance’s breath hitches, and Shiro’s Galra hand moves to rub the base of Lance’s neck. “It’s okay,” he says.

Lance shakes his head and swallows down a fresh set of tears. He pinches his lips together, and his eyes stray toward his belly, which is now stretched out as wide as a watermelon. It’s grown some since that morning, and Shiro feels a sharp stab of longing when he looks at it, and immediately feels ashamed for the heat that springs up in his belly.

“May I?” he asks.

Lance nods, and bites his lip when Shiro’s Galra hand exchanges places with the hand that had been holding Lance’s and he moves that hand to Lance’s belly. It’s tight, and warm, and one of the hybrids pushes up against the palm of his hand and seems to almost roll beneath the palm of his hand. Shiro can’t help the smile that springs to his lips. He doesn’t know if it’s Thing 1, 2, or 3, but he feels a connection to whichever of the three it is, and his eyes dart to Lance’s to see if he feels something too.

Lance is blushing, and his lashes are a dark and long and they fan his blushing cheeks prettily when his eyes close and open. There’s a twinge and a flooding of heat in Shiro’s gut, and he presses a kiss to Lance’s swollen belly, keeping eye contact as he does so. One of the hybrids kicks out at him, and he chuckles, and peppers Lance’s extended belly with kisses that bring with them a veritable rolling drumbeat of movement in their wake.

The doctor’s watching this interaction keenly, a thoughtful look on both of his faces. He’s rubbing one of his chins with a hoof-like appendage, glasses slipping down his nose. And then his features settle into a smile, and he turns back to his quiet consultation with Coran.

“What’s going on?” Pidge asks. One of her hands is on Lance’s bony hip, rubbing some kind of idle pattern in it that seems to ease some of the tension in Lance’s body.

“The doctor was worried that the offspring were dying,” Allura says quietly, voice sad and serious. She lays a comforting hand on Lance’s leg, and the nurse, frowning, takes some kind of measurement of Lance’s belly with a wand that’s glowing a dark red light that suddenly shifts to a light green light.

Whatever the soft green glow and the low hum that accompanies the shift in color signify, it makes the nurse crack a smile, the first one that Shiro has seen since the start of this long day, and the alien nurse moves away from them to consult with the doctor. Allura’s smiling too, and she pats Lance’s leg.

“The hybrids are moving,” she says. “They were dormant, and we couldn’t get a clear reading, until...” her eyebrows pucker, and she casts her eyes toward Shiro, head tilted thoughtfully. “Until you disobeyed orders and entered the room.”

Shiro opens his mouth to defend himself, but Allura holds a hand up and shakes her head. There’s a smile on her face.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s a good thing that you entered when you did.” Her eyes are sparkling as she looks at the hand that Shiro’s got on Lance’s belly.

“It is clear that Lance and...and...” Allura stumbles over her words and blushes as she gestures toward Lance’s belly.

“Things 1, 2 and 3,” Keith supplies in a voice that is far too serious sounding for the words.

Allura smiles and nods. “Yes, it is clear that Lance and Things 1, 2, and 3, needed you.” it’s the first time that she’s called them that. The first time that she’s really smiled since all of this happened.

“None of us realized how close you and Lance and the offspring had become,” Allura adds in a subdued voice.

Shiro wants to deny it, even goes so far as to shake his head, because he’s certain that this is all one sided, that Lance doesn’t want anything to do with him, with anyone after what happened to him, but stops mid head shake when he sees that Lance’s eyes are trained on him, that Lance’s fingers are entwined with those of his Galra hand, and that he seems to have gained some color back to his cheeks and eyes. He’s not afraid of Shiro, and even moves into the touch when Shiro starts to rub his belly, which is no doubt aching in the aftermath of this latest womb expansion.

Shiro searches Lance’s eyes, and something shifts inside of him, and then settles when he sees that Lance’s eyes are not filled with fear or disgust, but with something tender and hopeful. His heart hammers in his chest and he feels a little lightheaded as he moves to press his lips to Lance’s once again, stealing a kiss that is swiftly returned.

“Let me know if this is okay,” Shiro murmurs against Lance’s lips, oblivious to the curious stares of everyone in the room, the cleared throats.

Lance blushes and nods, and then whispers, “It’s okay, I...are you sure you...I mean, I’m...I’m...” he closes his eyes and his breath hitches in his chest.

“I’ve always admired you, and I...there was always this fantasy that I’d entertained, back before, before all of this...” Lance glances toward his belly, mouth twisting in anguish.

“Before I was...” Lance closes his eyes, and his voice comes out warbled and pained. “Before I was...raped,” he almost chokes on the ugly word as it leaves his mouth. “Before...before...before...”

“Lance, it wasn’t your fault,” Shiro says, forcing Lance to meet his eyes, to see the truth of his words in them. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Lance swallows and nods. “I know, but I feel so, so ugly and dirty and how could you possibly want me like this? Damaged.”

Shiro shakes his head, and holds Lance’s face between both of his hands, dragging the Galra hand from Lance’s white knuckled grip.

“You are not ugly or dirty or damaged,” he says. “You’re beautiful and brave, and --” Shiro kisses Lance right on the mouth, unmindful of their audience, because he’s never been that great at offering words of comfort and he doubts that is what Lance needs right now. He needs reassurance, and to know that he is loved, regardless of what happened to him.

“I love you,” he breathes the words out, the epiphany of them ringing in his heart as the words slip from his mouth of their own accord.

“I love you,” he repeats, suddenly giddy and dizzy in the truth of his words and what they mean for him, what they hopefully mean to Lance who is looking at him as though he wants to believe the words, but can’t bring himself to trust that they could possibly be true, that Shiro could really love him.

Shiro doesn’t need to hear the words from Lance’s lips. Not yet, maybe not ever. He hadn’t even known that he was going to say them, or how true they really were until he’d opened his mouth and the words had stolen their way out of it. Out of his heart.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” he says.

Lance’s eyes are a misty color, but not from unshed tears, from some kind of emotion that Shiro’s afraid to read in them. Instead of saying anything, Lance steals a kiss from him, and then smiles, lopsided as he rests back against the pillow.

“I feel the same,” Lance says. It’s not an outright declaration of love, but it’s a start and it makes Shiro’s heart thump madly in his chest.

He knows that it’s not going to be easy. That Lance will continue to be riddled with self-doubt and that he’ll doubt Shiro’s love for him, but Shiro’s willing to forge into this uncharted territory of loving someone as special and wonderful as Lance (even if Lance doesn’t see himself that way right now). He’s willing to risk his own heart, to give it to Lance.

“I think Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3, want you,” Lance says, blushing all the way to the tips of his ears. “I mean, they’re kicking up a storm, all three of them.”

Shiro chuckles and moves his hand from Lance’s cheek to his rippling belly. The babies, hybrids, offspring, still and push up against the palm of his hand, and Lance seems to relax even further at the touch.

“Is the exam over?” Hunk asks. His voice sounds clipped, professional, serious in a way that Hunk is rarely serious. “I think we need to get Lance and the babies in a place where they can be comfortable.”

Shiro wholeheartedly agrees and holds his breath as the doctor and Coran raise their heads. The doctor has a contemplative look on one of his faces, and a calculating look on the other. Shiro wonders if the two heads share thoughts, like a telepathic connection, or if they are independent of each other, like conjoined twins, only sharing a body.

“I agree,” the head with the calculating look says at last, and the doctor smiles. “We have all of the information that we need. At this stage during the pregnancy it is imperative that the birth parent and his offspring be made as comfortable as possible.” His other head nods in agreement.

Shiro’s thoughts are overdrive, and worry spreads like a cancer in his gut, but Pidge speaks before he can, asks the question that all of them are eager to hear the answer to. “Does that mean the hybrids will be born soon?”

The doctor nods both of his heads, and offers all of them what is no doubt supposed to be a comforting smile. “It should be any quintent now,” the head that had been contemplative earlier says in a voice that’s a little more melodious than that of his twin’s.

_Any quintent now_ , Shiro thinks, a stab of panic racing up his spine. He knows that they’ve got a room prepared for Lance and the triplets. That Hunk and Coran have gathered massive amounts of baby supplies for this, that they are as ready as they’ll ever be, but it’s still a lot to take in just then. Time had seemed so move so slowly that Shiro had almost felt as though Lance would just be perpetually pregnant. It was a ridiculous thought and he shakes it from his mind.

Lance’s breath stops and starts and, without thought, Shiro pulls Lance to him. He lifts Lance off the bed, and carts him out of the room, down the corridor, and into his room. He places Lance in the bed, and helps him get comfortable in a faded sweatshirt that’s three sizes too big for him, and makes him look younger than he really is, which twists Shiro’s guts.

“Sleep with me?” Lance asks, tentative.

Shiro doesn’t make him ask twice, he slips into the bed behind him, and pulls Lance back against his chest, enveloping the younger teen in a protective cocoon. He doesn’t care if the others follow them there, if they watch the both of them while they sleep. Lance feels good and right in his arms, and he’s tired, and knows that Lance is already drifting off to sleep before Keith, followed by Hunk, and then Pidge enter the room and arrange themselves all within reach of the bed -- of Lance.

His last conscious thought as he falls into a dreamless sleep is of how Lance fits perfectly into his embrace, like they’re two pieces of the same puzzle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Venlighed is Danish for Kindness  
> Curación is Galician for Healing


	4. Hello, Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is going to die. He knows this. There's a small part of him that is okay with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those who've taken the time to leave a thoughtful comment. 
> 
> Another jump in time.

Lance is going to die. He knows he should be terrified, feel something other than a floaty numbness, coupled with bouts of excruciating pain, but he doesn’t feel much of anything, other than Shiro’s hand gripping his as though he can pull him out of Death’s cold, certain grip, and the pain that’s threatening to rip his body apart. Shiro’s hand is warm and just as certain, but Lance knows it won’t be enough.

“Sorry,” he says, the word dying on his lips, his heart dying in his chest at the look of utter anguish and fear that crosses Shiro’s face before his mouth settles into a stubborn moue of denial.

Shiro shakes his head, grips Lance’s hand tighter. “No, you’re going to be fine, there’s nothing to be sorry for, Lance. You’ll be fine.”

Lance smiles and nods. His eyelids are heavy, and it’s hard to breathe. It’s time. Time for the babies, for Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3, to make their debut. Time for Lance to step aside and let them. He knows that they won’t be alone. That Shiro will be a wonderful father, Keith, Coran and Hunk will make excellent uncles, and Pidge and Allura will be fabulous aunts. They won’t even have time to miss the one who carried them in his body.

“Please,” Shiro whispers into Lance’s hair, his lips lingering there and then on Lance’s lips. “Please be brave just a little longer.”

“It’s time,” the strange alien nurse says, and Lance feels himself lifted, and then settled onto the cold, unforgiving metal of the exam table he was on a few quintents ago. Shiro doesn’t move away from him, though, and for this he feels grateful. He knows the others are waiting outside, pacing the corridors.

Though it’s hard for him, Lance forces his eyes open. If these are going to be his very last ticks amongst the living, he wants to spend them looking into eyes that hold the very universe in them. Eyes that are tender, kind, loving. Eyes that he could, if he had enough time, lose himself in.

“It’s okay,” Lance says, trying, and failing to raise his hand to Shiro’s face to brush away the tears that are leaking from his eyes. He no longer hates the hybrids, the little bundles of joy, that are trying to make good their escape from their host.

“Don’t cry,” Lance says, though he can feel tears slipping down his own cheeks. They’re hot against the cooling hands of Death. “Thank you for, for loving me.”

Shiro shakes his head, and kisses Lance. It’s quick, but filled with love and longing and something that Lance can’t put a word to.

“Promise me that you’ll take care of them,” Lance says, hand straying to his belly, which feels like it’s about to tear him apart. It hurts worse than anything he’s ever felt before, and Lance is looking forward to an end to the pain.  

Something’s slipped over his mouth and nose, and Shiro’s hand feels like little more than a fly buzzing around his hand as he drifts away.

The release from pain is almost instant, and Lance floats free of his body, heart swelling with love when he looks down at himself, at Shiro seated beside him, hand gripping his so tightly it’s a wonder that Lance can’t feel it, even while he’s outside of  his own body.

Lance’s gaze is drawn toward the doctors (in addition to Dr. Venlighed, Dr. Iyashi and Dr. Watoto are also present) and Nurse Ravitseja (he’d gotten her name this time), to the bloody mess of the lower half of his body. He shudders and looks away, focuses on Shiro, on his hand clasped between both of Shiro’s.

He doesn’t want to die, but the blood pouring out of his body, the hurried movements of the doctors and nurse, accompanied by their tersely clipped words, tells him that he doesn’t really have a choice. The babies are coming into the world, and Lance is leaving it. It’s probably for the best.

Lance can feel Blue’s presence. Can hear her comforting buzz in the back of his mind and he smiles. She doesn’t like the dark tone of his thoughts, does not want to lose him. He offers what little comfort he can, tries not to feel dizzy when his body, white and cold, goes deathly still and the doctors shout something to Nurse Ravitseja who zaps him with something that makes his body twist and twitch, his lungs fill and expand with oxygen.

_Live._

It’s a thought, whispered through the link that he shares with Blue. _Live._

Lance wants to live. He wants to live. Wants to live grow deeper in love with Shiro.

He even wants to get to know the babies as something more than Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3, but he doesn’t think that it’s his choice to make.

_Do not let death take you._

The words play across his mind a rough interpretation of images that flit before his mind’s eye and disappear. They seem to rumble through him, and at first he’s not sure where they’re coming from, but then he knows. It’s Shiro’s lion, Black.

_Fight._

Shiro’s voice. He can hear it, faintly, as the man implores him, cradles his cool upper body with the warmth of his own.

_Fight._

_Live._

_Don’t leave me._

Lance’s body jerks once, twice, and then stills, and he feels dizzy and disoriented. He feels nothing, and then, with one last jerk that seems to slam him back into himself, he feels an agonizing pain that leaves him breathless and blind.

“We’re losing him.”

A snarl, a purple glow.

“You need to let go.”

“We need to get him into a healing pod.”

Mewling cries.

“They’re healthy.”

“Beautiful.”

“Quick, now.”

The words bounce around in Lance’s head and he can’t hold onto any of them. He can’t even hold onto Shiro’s hand as it slips from his, and he floats away in the cold hands of Death.

His last thought as he crosses from death to life is, _how beautiful_ , and he’s not sure if he’s thinking about the look on Shiro’s face as he regards the three babies that the doctors had placed in his arms when they’d stolen Lance’s hand away from his -- chubby pinkish little things -- or the babies, or both.

It’s a thought that he carries with him into the fathomless darkness. One that buoyes him, and makes him a little less afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iyashi 癒し is Japanese for Healing  
> Watoto is Swahili for Children  
> Ravitseja is Estonian for Healer  
> Puq Jup is Klingon for Child Friend


	5. The Burden of Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team is unsure what to do with the babies in Lance’s absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much angst abounds in this chapter, though it ends on a happy note. The next chapter is full of so much fluff that it will probably rot your teeth.
> 
> I apologize for any time inconsistencies/issues.

“Did he tell you what he wanted to name them?” Hunk asks quietly. He’s holding one of the triplets, mouth lifted up at the corners as he watches the baby sleep. “I mean, we can’t keep calling them, Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3, forever.”

The baby that Hunk is holding has Lance’s silky brown hair, his turned up nose, and Shiro thinks that her six almond shaped eyes might even be the same shade of blue as Lance’s. Though her skin is a furry green, it’s just a light dusting of fur, and probably won’t grow in as thick as that of a full blooded Orang Gurita. She doesn’t have two mouths, which Shiro is grateful for.

In spite of the fact that she has two pairs of tentacles for legs, a football shaped head, and the small arms that mark an Orang Gurita, Shiro thinks she’s beautiful. She is clearly half of Lance.

The baby that Keith is holding a little stiffly (reluctantly and with a lot of coaxing and coaching from Shiro) is the spitting image of Lance, or what Shiro imagines Lance must’ve looked like when he was a baby. He’s awake, eyes glued to Keith’s face as he gurgles and blows bubbles around a fat little fist. The look on Keith’s face is one of amusement and wonder and Shiro wishes that he could take a picture of it. Lance would have loved to see that look on Keith’s face.

Coran’s holding the third baby, the one that almost died shortly after birth, after Lance was taken away from Shiro. Coran has the little boy bundled up tight within the crook of his arm, and is telling him an Altean story in a quiet voice as he feeds him from a bottle.

The little boy is concentrating on eating, his brows furrowed, and his tiny hands gripping the bottle along with Coran’s much bigger hand. He, too, has a football shaped head, six, rather than two, eyes, though they’re a deep green in color rather than blue. He has (thankfully) only one mouth, but he does have two pairs of tentacles, like his sister, and his hair is a light green, though he has the same smooth skin that Lance does, and arms that are a normal length. He’s smaller than the other two, no doubt edged out by his siblings, and he’s the one that Shiro’s spent many a sleepless night feeding and lulling back to sleep.

“No,” Shiro says. Lance hadn’t said anything to him about what he wanted to call the babies. He thinks that Lance wasn’t ready, that he was in denial up until the last few quintents.

“Did he say anything to anyone else?” Shiro asks. He doesn’t look at any of them, simply cleans up Lance’s room, now the room that he shares with the babies.

“We should --”

“Not yet,” Shiro cuts Pidge off a little more harshly than he’d intended to. It hurts, though, to think of Lance not being here for this, not being there to name his babies.

“I’m sorry,” Pidge says, and Shiro sighs.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Shiro says, hands bunching in the fabric of the baby clothes he’s folding. “I just, I can’t, not yet.”

“That’s okay,” Coran says. “We’ve got plenty of time, don’t we, little fellow?” He tickles the baby’s belly and gets a disgruntled grunt from the little boy in response. “After all, the babies are only a few handfuls of quintents old.”

A month in Earth terms.

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose, tries to breathe evenly, because he’s afraid that he might break if he thinks about how old the babies are, how long Lance has been lost to him, to them.

“It’s okay,” Hunk says. “I just, I thought maybe Lance had said something to you before...”

They all seem to collectively hold their breath and Shiro wishes that he could break something. Instead, he lets out a breath and resumes folding the clothing as though his heart isn’t about to break even more than it already did when Lance flat-lined.

“There’s still time,” Coran repeats.

Pidge settles beside Keith on the couch that they’d found at some alien outpost on their journey to Curación. It’s not exactly a match to the armchair that Lance seemed to gravitate toward, but it is similar in color.

The armchair is there, in Lance’s room, as well. Hunk is sitting on the floor beside it. Shiro wants to tell him that it’s okay, that he should sit in Lance’s chair, but he can’t seem to get the words to leave his mouth. They’re stuck in his throat.

A sob escapes him, and then another, and before he knows it, he’s crying, and it’s not one of those quick, quiet cries. It’s a crying jag that has him gasping for breath, and falling to his knees. He hasn’t cried like this since he can remember. There hadn’t been time for tears when he’d been captured. Tears would have marked him as weak, vulnerable.

Now, though, they refuse to let him keep them pent up, and Shiro isn’t sure what to do, how to handle the arms that wrap around him after a time, the other sobs that echo his own as Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Coran join him to weep for Lance, their lost friend, brother, comrade in arms. He hadn’t realized how deeply he’d loved Lance until now.

Time seems to cease, and Shiro’s not even aware that Allura has joined them until all of his tears are spent and he raises his blurry, tired eyes to look at her. Her lips are twisted, and her eyes are red, yet there’s something in them that causes Shiro’s heart to race in his chest. A touch of hope that he is terrified of grabbing onto, but must, because if he doesn’t, the thinks he’ll die.

“He’s awake,” Allura says.

Shiro’s shaking. The words reverberate through his head, and he thinks that he must’ve heard wrong. He can’t breathe, and the room is starting to spin.

“Shiro? Can you hear me? Shiro,” the voices sound like they’re coming at him through some kind of tunnel. He’s lying down, and can’t, for the life of him, remember how he got into bed, but he’s there now, and there are several concerned faces peering down at him.

Allura’s pinched face smooths out into something like relief, and a small smile plays about her lips. “Are you with us now?” she asks.

Shiro wants to ask where he’d gone, but then it comes back to him. The aching loss, the unbearable thought of naming Lance’s children in his absence, Allura’s claim that Lance was...

“He’s awake?” Shiro asks, sitting up, ignoring the way that his head spins when he does so.

Allura nods, but then purses her lips. “The doctors are looking him over. He’s very weak, and in no condition to handle a lot of visitors right now.”

“He’s...”

“Yes,” Allura says, nodding, gripping his shoulders as though that will help her convey the truth of her words. “Lance is alive.” Tears are sparkling in her eyes, but Shiro can see that they’re not tears of sorrow, but ones of joy and his heart almost gives out on him.

He digs the fingers of his Galra arm into the flesh of his human arm, fearing that he’s dreaming, but it hurts, and he can see the tear tracked faces of the others surrounding him. His teammates, friends, family, and knows that he’s not dreaming. Lance, who’d been so deathly pale, whose heart had stopped beating, three times during the delivery of the babies who are now sleeping peacefully in their cribs, is by some miracle of fate, alive.

“Shiro,” Allura says. “He’s been asking for you.”

Shiro almost falls out of bed in his haste to get out of it and get to Lance. He’s hoisted by hands that are gentle and firm, and ushered out the door and down the corridor that will lead him to the young man that he’d grown to love in such a short amount of time.

The others stop just outside the door, Keith pushes the door open, and Hunk and Pidge shove Shiro toward the door before he can back out, because now that he’s there, he’s not so sure that his legs can hold him up. He knows it’s irrational, this fear that he has that this is all a dream, that Allura’s tricking him, that he’ll walk in to find Lance out of the healing chamber that the Curación doctors had brought into the Castle of Lions for him, but pale and still -- dead.

“Shiro?” Lance’s lips barely move, and Shiro has to strain to hear Lance speak, but it’s the most beautiful thing, aside from the babies’ first mewling cries, that he’s ever heard.

Shiro sinks to his knees beside the hospital bed that Lance is lying in, and takes a few dobashes to compose himself. Lance’s hand on his head, fingers entangled in Shiro’s hair, is what makes Shiro raise his head.

“Long time no see,” Lance says in a voice that is weak, but teasing. There’s a smile on his face, though it seems like it takes an effort for him to smile, and Shiro’s heart feels like it’s going to stop beating because Lance looks like a slight wind could blow him away. He’s not ready to lose Lance again.

“A month,” Shiro says thickly. He places his hand on Lance’s now shrunken belly. He’s much too thin, even thinner than he’d been before his pregnancy.

“I’m sorry,” Lance says, fingers stilling in their massaging of Shiro’s scalp.

Shiro brings his hand to rest on Lance’s chest, just above his heart, and comforts himself with the steady beat of it beneath the palm of his hand. “I missed you,” Shiro says, eyes searching Lance’s drooping ones. “We all did.”

“How are they?” Lance asks around a yawn.

“They’re fine, missing you,” Shiro says.

“The babies?” Lance asks, forcing his eyes open. There’s a worried look in them, and Shiro can’t keep the smile from his face when he leans up to kiss Lance full on the mouth, pulling away far quicker than he wants to so that Lance can breathe.

“They’re perfect,” Shiro says, knowing that he sounds dorky, and that he’s probably got a dopey look on his face.

“They’re okay?” Lance asks.

“They’re fine. They’re sleeping now. The others are looking after them,” Shiro says.

“I want to see them,” Lance says, voice waning. His eyelids flutter closed and he tries to open them, but fails.

“As soon as the doctors give the go ahead, I’ll bring them in,” Shiro promises.

Lance falls asleep, and, though he’d like to stay in the infirmary with Lance, watch over him while he sleeps, Shiro’s got work to do and the doctors assure him that Lance will soon regain some of his strength, and over time, he’ll be back to full strength. It’s not quite the assurance that he wants, but it’s better than the alternative, and Shiro leaves with his heart a little less heavy.


	6. Family Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every baby needs a name to grow into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pure fluff, and I'm playing around with heritage and tradition. 
> 
> Thank you to all of those who've left wonderful comments. :-)

“Can I remove the blindfold now?” Lance asks from where he’d been positioned on the armchair that Shiro had deposited him in a few ticks ago.

He’s anxious, but not fearful anxious, excited anxious, and curious about what his friends, his family, are up to. He was finally out from under the watchful eyes of the various doctors and nurses from Curación, and able to move into his new room. A room that came with a rather dreamy roommate, and three sometimes squalling infants.

It had been love at first sight for Lance when Shiro, Hunk and Keith had brought the three babies in to see him shortly after Shiro’s first visit when Lance had been awakened from his healing sleep. He’d been speechless, and wondered how his body could have produced such perfectly beautiful beings.

He no longer thinks of them as Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3, but he’s still struggling, even a month and a half after waking, with coming up with names for them. He wants names that will fit their personalities, names they can grow into, names that mean something. He also really misses his family, and wants to carry on family tradition though he’s universes away from his own.  

“Just a few more ticks,” Shiro says, pressing a kiss to the side of Lance’s mouth, jarring him from his thoughts.

Lance squirms in the armchair, and he almost pulls the blindfold off his eyes, but Shiro’s hand is there, holding his hand before he can lift it high enough. He sighs and leans against Shiro, who’s sitting on the arm of the chair.

A scent wafts into the room. One that Lance recognizes. One that he’s missed. One that promises something tooth achingly sweet and chocolatey and wonderful. His mouth waters and he lifts his nose into the air.

Shiro pulls the blindfold off of Lance’s eyes, and Lance blinks until his eyes adjust to the light. He doesn’t even attempt to hold back the smile that blossoms across his face, or the needy sound that escapes his watering mouth when he sees the chocolate cake, dripping with icing, that Hunk is holding out for him. There are other plates of food, brought in by Pidge, Coran, Allura and Keith, but Lance only has eyes for the cake.

Hunk laughs, and plates a huge slice of the chocolate cake for Lance who barely restrains himself from wolfing it down. He plates smaller slices of cake for everyone else, and Lance patiently (stomach growling, drool gathering at the edges of his wide grin) waits until everyone has a slice of cake on a plate before he takes a bite.

Hunk watches him and Lance can swear that his best friend isn’t even breathing as he waits for Lance’s pronouncement on the cake. Lance chews the piece of cake carefully, cataloguing all of the different flavors that he can taste -- a hint of something citrusy, like orange; a touch of vanilla; and though he knows that it can’t be, because they haven’t been able to find Earth chocolate anywhere in the universe, something that tastes suspiciously like the real deal.

Lance doesn’t stop to give Hunk his judgment on the cake, instead, he shovels another large bite into his mouth and moans his approval. “This is wonderful,” he says around a mouthful of the best chocolate cake he can ever remember eating. It’s been a long time. Hunk breathes and everyone digs into the cake, complimenting Hunk on his labor of love.

The rest of the food is delicious as well, but Lance can’t eat half of what Shiro puts on his plate, and ends up finishing it himself. Hunk assures him that there’s another cake in the kitchen with Lance’s name on it, so he’s not completely distraught when Keith eats the last slice of cake.

Lance’s tummy is full, pleasantly so, and he watches his friends through half-lidded eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. He’s missed this. Missed them. Missed having Shiro beside him.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Shiro says, and Lance tilts his head to the side to eye the man that he’s grown to love even more in the last month and a half. He hasn’t heard that turn of phrase in what feels like forever.

“This is nice,” Lance says, settling against Shiro’s side, relishing having Shiro’s fingers massaging his scalp, running through his hair.

“It is.” Shiro hums in agreement. “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back, though I’m not looking forward to battling the Galra any time soon,” Lance says. The mere thought of it makes him shiver. Now that he’s got three little lives to look after, he feels a little differently about being a paladin of Voltron.

“Me either,” Shiro says, sighing, fingers pressing into a stubborn knot on Lance’s shoulder.

The others are engaged in their own conversations, though there’s an air of expectation that’s surrounding them, and Lance can’t continue to ignore it no matter how good Shiro’s fingers and hands are at loosening the knots in his neck and shoulder. He has an announcement to make, one that he’s spent a long time thinking about, and though the festivities are largely due to Lance’s release from the medical bay, they are also, in part, due to the announcement he’d promised to make tonight.

Lance clears his throat, and the conversations die down. He nervously grips Shiro’s hand, and gets a supportive squeeze in response. All eyes are on him, and Lance’s mouth feels suddenly dry.

“I --” Lance clears his throat again, hoping that it will dislodge the words that are stuck in his throat, and he blinks back a sudden onslaught of tears. Shiro gives his hand another squeeze and Lance draws in a shuddery breath.

“Thank you,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “I know that it wasn’t easy taking care of me, and of the, of the babies, after everything that happened.” A tear slips free and Shiro wipes it away.

“I don’t know what I would have done without all of your help and support,” Lance says, hoping that his pitiful words will help convey at least a small portion of the enormity of the gratitude that he’s feeling for his friends, his family.

Pidge makes a pshaw and waves away Lance’s thanks. She rolls her eyes and her hand. “We know all that. It’s what fri-family does for each other,” she says, and shrugs.

“I think what everyone really wants to know, though,” Pidge says, eyes glittering. “Is what you’ve decided to name your kids. The suspense is killing me.”

“Me, too,” Hunk says.

Keith nods, and grunts a response that is too low for Lance to hear. He’s holding one of the triplets, eyes focused intensely on the babbling little boy. It warms Lance’s heart, and he knows that he’s doing the right thing, Keith’s devotion to the little boy he’d helped care for during Lance’s absence is proof enough as are the funny faces Coran is making at Lance’s other son. Hunk has Lance’s little girl propped up in his lap, bouncing her.

Lance draws strength from Shiro’s steady grip on his hand, and some of the tension leaves him as he says, “I thought that, since you too such good care of them when I was in stasis that you should name them.”

Keith looks up at him, a panicked look in his eyes that makes Lance want to laugh. Pidge’s eyes grow big and round. Coran’s moustache twitches, and the marks on his cheeks seem to glow a little brighter. Allura seems to blush as well. Hunk’s face scrunches up, and he moves to shake his head, but Lance holds a finger up.

“I have given this a lot of thought, and can’t think of a better way to repay you for all that you’ve done, or for a better legacy to give my children. For a long time, I didn’t want them. I resented them, and what they reminded me of, and if it hadn’t been for all of you, I don’t know that I would have survived what happened.” Lance feels choked up, but he pushes the tears away, and looks at each of the people who’ve become so important to him.

“But, we can’t name your children,” Pidge says, sounding slightly horrified at the prospect of it.

“It’s a tradition in my family for the children to be named by a close family member, like an uncle or an aunt, a first cousin, or a grandparent,” Lance says, voice quiet and as steady as he can make it.

“It would mean the world to me if you helped me carry out that family tradition,” Lance says, he’s looking at his and Shiro’s hands, rather than at those of the friends he now considers family, fearful of what their faces will show now that he’s laid it all out there.

“Oh, Lance,” Allura says, and Lance looks up to see that there are tears swimming in her eyes, her hands clasped in front of her. “Are you certain?”

Swallowing the sudden knot in his throat, Lance nods. “Yes, you’re all like family to me now.”

“To the both of us,” Shiro says, holding their interlaced fingers up and kissing Lance’s knuckles.

Hunk blinks back tears, and Coran doesn’t even bother to blink them back, he sobs loudly and wipes the happy tears from the corners of his eyes. Keith frowns and gives him a searching look, and then tension seems to leak from his shoulders, and he glances once more at the baby he’s holding, eyes and facial expression going soft.

“Dakota,” Keith says in a voice that’s pitched for the baby. “How about, Dakota?” he asks, turning to see if Lance and Shiro approve of the name. “It is a Native American name meaning, ‘friend’. He’s so friendly, and open with the way that he looks at people,” Keith says, blushing as the words spill out of his mouth.

It’s a little cute, but Lance knows better than to say that to Keith. He doesn’t want to ruin this moment by drawing attention to the cuteness of Keith’s blush, or by asking how Keith knows about Native American names. Maybe it was something he’d learned in school.

Hunk has turned the little girl around to face him and is searching her face intently before he smiles, and nods, and then turns her back around to continue her playful bouncing.

“Kamalei Kailani Olina Makana,” he says, confident in his choice of name, despite its length. “In the Hawaiian language, Kamalei means ‘beloved child’, Kailani means ‘sky’, Olina means ‘filled with happiness’ and Makana means ‘gift’.”

“Wow,” Pidge breathes out. “Can I add a name, too?”

Though Kamalei Kailani Olina Makana already had a pretty big name for such a little girl, Lance can’t find it in his heart to deny his little sister her request and nods.

“Not that Kama...etc, needs another name or anything like that, but I thought maybe Dakota could use a middle name?”

Lance blinks and laughs in relief. “Yes, a middle name would be good. Can’t have his sister rivaling him in the name department after all.”

Keith shoots him a glare, but it lacks heat, and is made completely moot when he starts making silly faces at the gurgling Dakota.

“I was thinking Alexander, you know, defender of mankind,” Pidge offers.

“Dakota Alexander,” Lance tests out the name and looks to Shiro who nods his approval. “I like it.”

Pidge’s cheeks grow pink and she bites her bottom lip. “Thank you,” she says.

Lance shakes his head. Words cannot even begin to convey how thankful he is to Pidge, to all of them for all they’ve done for him. He should be thanking her, not the other way around, but she waves him off with another handwave when  he opens his  mouth to say as much.

“Stuff it,” she says. “We’re family.”

“Consider it stuffed,” Lance says. He mimes his lips being zipped and shoots a wink in Pidge’s direction.

“Princess?” Coran is holding his charge up beneath his chin, one hand supporting the swaddled bottom, the other at the back of the little boy’s neck, keeping him secure and safe.

Allura and Coran have a silent exchange, and the Princess finally gives Coran a short nod and tight smile, which makes Coran smile widely. His moustache twitches, and he declares, loud and proud, “Alfor Altea.”

“Are you certain, Princess?” Shiro asks.

Allura smiles a little broader and tilts her head to indicate her approval of the name. “I would be honored to have Lance’s child named after my father, and my planet, that is, if you are alright with it?”

“Of course,” Lance says. “I’m honored as well. Thank you Princess,” he says. “Coran.” The Altean smiles and nods in reply.

“I think it’s time for the little ones to be put down for the night,” Coran says. It is late, for the babies, and Lance stifles his second yawn of the night.

“In the morning, we will prepare to leave Curación,” Allura says. “They have been more than hospitable and have proved themselves valuable allies, though not in our fight against the Galra empire, but in their dedication to the art of medicine and in offering healing help to all throughout multiple universes.”

Lance’s heart feels heavy as they talk of leaving, and he busies himself with preparing bottles for late night feedings, and getting the triplets to bed. He wants to do something to thank the doctors and nurses for everything they’ve done, but has no idea what could possibly be thanks enough.

“Come to bed,” Shiro says after everyone’s left and Lance has finally managed to rock Kamalei to sleep. Dakota had fallen asleep in Keith’s arms, and Alfor had been asleep well before the party had come to an end. The little boy seemed to like his sleep more than his brother and sister, much like Lance.

Lifting Kamalei’s hair off her forehead, Lance presses a kiss there before turning and climbing into bed with Shiro, snuggling back against the larger man, and taking comfort in the way that Shiro drapes an arm over him and pulls him closer.

He’d been afraid, at first, that snuggling with Shiro like this would dredge up horrible memories, that he’d never be able to enjoy the touch of another human or alien being, that the Orang Gurita who’d stolen his innocence had also stolen everything good. That his future had been taken from him. He knows differently now. His nights are not always free from nightmares. Shiro’s aren’t either, but they both have each other and that makes the nightmares, and everything else, easier to bear.


	7. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Shiro learn how to manage their paladin duties with being fathers. Domestic fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This'll rot your teeth. 
> 
> Thanks to all those who've supported the writing through their lovely comments.

Shiro yawns widely and blindly feels the mattress beside him, frowning when his hands meet with nothing but wrinkled sheets and tangled bedding. At first he’s not sure what woke him, but once his heart stills, and he stops blindly searching for Lance beside him, he hears it -- the sound of Lance’s melodious voice singing a Spanish lullaby. He’d sung it for Shiro one night after a particularly gruesome nightmare inspired by their latest battle with a Galra fleet had woken Shiro and sent Lance rolling onto the floor.

Shiro pushes himself up on an elbow and squints into the dimly lit room. Lance is sitting in the rocking chair that Pidge had scored on some planet they’d come across on the way to Curación (Shiro misses the relative peace of their visit there, though he doesn’t miss the additional nightmares that losing Lance, even for a brief amount of time, has given him). She’d been so proud of her find, and was bound and determined to get the ugly looking thing into working order before the babies arrived. It’s beautiful now. A true work of art.

Lance’s voice is pitched low, but Shiro can make out the words, and Shiro can’t help but be lulled by the music of Lance’s voice. It’s arresting. Lance raises his eyes and catches Shiro looking at him, he pauses in his singing to mouth, ‘Kamalei,’ and then resumes his singing, though a little louder now that he knows Shiro’s awake.

“Papa,” Kamalei says in a teary voice, breath hitching. She reaches toward Lance’s face with her stubby arms.

“Papa’s here.” Lance lifts her closer, lets her hold onto a lock of his hair and rub it through her fingers. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Kamalei draws in a few more shuddering breaths and then sighs long and deep, and her eyelashes, long and dark as Lance’s, flutter against her cheeks, though her grip on Lance’s hair does not loosen. She doesn’t want her Papa to let her go yet. Shiro can relate to that.

She’s by far their fussiest child, and aside from Hunk or Pidge, Lance is the only one she will settle down to sleep for. Shiro’s tried it, and failed. The boys will fall asleep at the drop of a hat, but Kamalei needs her Papa, or her Uncle Hunk, or Auntie Pidge, to help her fall asleep.

“She had a nightmare,” Lance whispers.

Shiro scrubs a hand over his face and nods, moves to sit on the edge of the mattress. “Anything I can do?”

Lance shakes his head, and then frowns in thought and nods. “Check on the boys. They didn’t cry out or anything, but you know how Dakota is, he’s so much like Keith it isn’t even funny, I can’t believe the amount of influence Keith seems to have on him, and Alfor, I think he’s only got two modes, sound asleep, or on the way to sound asleep.”

Chuckling at the look of irritation that crosses Lance’s face, because both boys are very much like their father, no matter how much they seem to have taken after their ‘uncles’ that he’s blind to it, and prefers, instead, to blame Keith and Coran for the boys’ temperament. To be fair, Alfor is bubbly and outgoing (when he’s awake) and Dakota does tend to be a little on the quiet, broody side. Shiro thinks that each of the children has a distinct part of Lance’s personality, regardless of what Lance says to the contrary. He knows that part of Lance’s irritation is due to the fact that he missed being part of the first month of the babies’ lives, and didn’t really start being their Papa full time until after they’d left Curación.

“You want me to take her?” Shiro asks after looking in at the boys and finding them both soundly asleep, little Alfor hugging his blue blanket tightly and snoring softly, Dakota snuggling the stuffed red kitten that Keith had given him for his first birthday, which had come and gone in the blink of an eye.

The triplets are a year and two months old now, and giving Shiro a few more white hairs with some of their antics. They are starting to take stumbling, questing steps on wobbly legs, and they can crawl at warp speed. It’s more than a little terrifying thinking about what trouble they can get into now, and what trouble they will get into in the future. Shiro doesn’t even want to think about it.

Lance shakes his head, “Nah, I got her, you should go back to sleep. I’ll join you as soon as this one falls asleep. It shouldn’t be long.”

Shiro doesn’t need to be told twice. He yawns, loudly, and then lumbers back to bed, sprawling across it to keep Lance’s side warm (at least that’s what he tells himself) until the other man can come back to bed. It’s the wee hours of the morning, and they’ll need to be up soon. They need to train.

It’s hard to leave the triplets, but they have good help in a young nurse named Puq Jup who had decided to join them on their journey across the universe. She sleeps in her own quarters, but acts as a nanny when Lance and Shiro train or go into battle. She’s young and eager, and has been smitten with the triplets (and Lance) since she’d first met them.

The Curación healers had been reluctant to let her leave as she hadn’t completed her training, but she’d convinced them that this was her destiny, a destiny that she’d understood after consulting the stars, as the kind from her planet did before making any decision.

Though she’s short and squat Puq Jup is strong and tireless in her work, and, in her off time, she continues her studies under Coran’s enthusiastic tutelage. She’s a godsend, and Shiro does not doubt that one of the universes did her to them for this very reason -- to help Lance and him take care of the triplets. Maybe the stars had aligned on the day that Lance was taken and brutalized, or whatever it was that had happened to bring her to them. She’d left her family around that same time that Lance had been taken, and had traveled through the stars and several universes to reach Curación and learn what she could there, and now she’s with them, helping to care for Dakota, Alfor and Kamalei.

Lance starts singing softly and before he knows it, Shiro’s asleep, dreaming of the triplets and Lance, of chasing after stars to find their rightful place among them. He grunts and shifts, barely waking when Lance finally comes to bed and shoves him over, muttering about him being a bed hog. Shiro latches onto Lance’s warmth as soon as he can, hand trailing down to Lance’s firm belly. He can’t get pregnant again, but Shiro dreams of it anyway. Of a little boy who looks like a cross between himself and Lance, and a little girl with a shock of dark hair and eyes the color of the ocean on a clear, sunny day.

It’s with more than a little reluctance that he lets the dream recede and gets out of bed when Dakota calls impatiently to him, “Da Da Da!”

He’s banging on the edge of his crib, demanding to be let out, and Shiro stumbles to him, rubs the sleep out of his eyes and the little boy, who looks so much like Lance, puts his arms up in a silent demand to be lifted. Shiro complies and cuddles the little boy to his chest for a little bit while he checks on the others. Alfor is still asleep, which is no surprise, but Kamalei is watching him with four of her six eyes. She’s got a thumb in her mouth, and is clutching her stuffed yellow mouse tightly to her chest (a gift from ‘Unca’ Hunk). She follows Shiro’s progress with her eyes, but makes no move to sit up or call out for her Papa.

She’s still sleepy, which is no surprise. Lance, of course, is now sprawled out over the entire bed, and Shiro lets out a silent chuckle at how he’s become the bed hog that he’d accused Shiro of being earlier in the morning.

“Let’s change your diaper, and then get the others up, how does that sound?” Shiro asks as he places Dakota on their makeshift changing table.

Dakota giggles and wriggles and nods. “Da,” he says.

“I’ll take that as a, yes,” Shiro says, and then he starts humming a wordless tune as he changes Dakota’s diaper. It’s quick and easy going this morning, and Shiro’s thankful for that. Dakota seems to be in a good mood.

He quickly dresses Dakota and then sets the boy down on the floor. “Shall we wake up your brother and sister, and then wake up Papa?”

Dakota nods, and pounds on the floor. He pushes himself up on his feet using the leg of the crib closest to him and then he starts to shake it, laughing at the disgruntled sound from its occupant. Kamalei is not happy, and she makes her unhappiness known by tossing her green trinket (an intricate toy that Pidge had created from material she’d found around the castle) out of her crib. It just barely misses Dakota’s head, and bounces underneath the crib. Dakota quickly loses interest in waking his sister, and crawls under the crib to retrieve the prize initiating an unhappy shout from his sister.

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose and looks toward the bed. Lance is still fast asleep, mouth slack as he quietly snores, blissfully unaware of his children’s early morning squabbling. He plucks a fully awake Kamalei out of the crib and wrestles a diaper and clothing onto her and then gets on his knees to fish Dakota from underneath the crib.

“Give your sister’s toy back to her,” he says when attempting to pry the toy from Dakota’s pudgy fingers does not work.

Dakota shakes his head and a mulish expression darkens his face. Lance might attribute the look to Keith, but Shiro has seen that look on his face too many times to count, and knows that Dakota gets his stubborn streak from his human father. Thankfully, the doctors had assured them that none of the children would go through a heat like those of full Orang Gurita, because they had inherited human physiology.

“No,” Dakota says. “Mine.”

“That belongs to Kamalei,” Shiro says, trying to remain patient in the midst of a toddler battle of wills.

“Mine,” Dakota insists, eyebrows furrowing, and face growing dark.

Kamalei hits her brother and grabs for the toy. Dakota bites her in return, and then Shiro’s hands are full with two biting, scratching, hair pulling toddlers. Alfor wakes up when the battle’s reached a peak, props himself up against the bars of his crib, and watches the melee with a bewildered look on his face. He smiles and then starts clapping when Shiro manages to secure one kicking toddler beneath one arm and the other beneath his other arm.

Dakota is still clinging to the stolen toy, and Kamalei is screaming bloody murder. One look toward the disheveled bed shows that Lance is still sound asleep, and Shiro wonders how he can sleep through the Battle of the Green Toy, yet wake to the soft cries of his daughter having a nightmare.

Alfor is bouncing in his excitement, clearly enjoying the show that his Da, brother and sister are putting on for him. It’s amazing how he can go from sound asleep to wide awake in no time at all.

At a loss for what to do with the children who are trying to wrest themselves out of his hold, Shiro plunks them down in their cribs and then pries the toy from Dakota’s hand when he’s distracted.

Dakota’s bottom lip trembles and a fat tear rolls down his cheek. “Mine,” he says in a voice that goes straight to Shiro’s heart and threatens to close around it like a vice.

“Here’s yours from Auntie Pidge,” Shiro says in what he hopes is a reasonable tone of voice, and he hands the green trinket that Pidge had made for the little boy to him, though it’s sitting right next to the little boy. Dakota draws in a shuddering breath and then pulls back his arm and tosses the toy clear across the room.

Shiro’s eyes widen, and he dumps Kamalei’s toy into her crib. The little girl finally stops screaming and picks the toy up right away. She clutches it in a fist and holds it close to her body. She casts a murderous look in her brother’s direction, almost smugly challenging him to come get the toy that she’s got in her hand.

Counting to ten, because if he doesn’t, he’s afraid that he’ll snap, Shiro slowly turns toward Alfor who is happily babbling away to his orange dragon plushie now that the action has died down. The little boy seems as oblivious to the tension in the room as his still slumbering father is, and Shiro forces himself to be as patient and as calm as he can when he reaches for Alfor to change and dress him. By far, he is the easiest child to deal with, though he has his moments of stubbornness, too, though there are far less of them. Shiro wonders if he gets that from the Orang Gurita, or if that’s a hidden part of Lance’s personality that’s shining through his son.

“C’mon, let’s go wake your Papa,” Shiro says.

Kamalei and Dakota are still glaring daggers at each other and Alfor has two of his tentacle legs wrapped around Shiro’s middle and the other two around his Galra arm. He’s leaning sleepily against Shiro’s chest.

“You wanna wake up Papa?” Shiro asks Alfor.

Alfor blushes and nods, and removes his tentacles from Shiro’s waist and arm as Shiro places him on the bed beside his Papa. There’s a bit of a protest from the other two as they watch Alfor at work. Waking Papa is a very coveted activity, because it means that they get to clamber all over Lance and are often rewarded with cuddles and kisses.

“You shouldn’t have fought over Auntie Pidge’s toy,” Shiro says as he watches Alfor at work, and realizes his mistake as soon as the little boy crawls over his Papa and plants himself beside the slumbering man. Instead of waking him, Alfor wraps his tentacles and arms around Lance and cuddles close and closes his eyes. At this rate, they’re going to be late for breakfast and then the schedule for their entire day is going to be messed up.

“Alfor,” Shiro says in an authoritative voice. The little boy opens one of his eyes just a sliver and then he closes it. “You’re supposed to be waking Papa up, not cuddling him.”

“Cuddles,” Alfor says in a mockery of Shiro’s authoritative tone.

“You can cuddle after Papa’s awake,” Shiro says. He sits on the edge of the bed and starts rubbing circles on Lance’s back, which just makes the younger man sigh and sink deeper into the mattress.

“C’mon, sleepyhead, it’s time to wake up,” Shiro says, applying a little more pressure to the rubs and hoping that when Lance does finally wake, he won’t be crabby.

“Kisses, Da,” Dakota instructs. He’s now standing in his crib, arms crossed on top of the railing as he watches Shiro.

Kamalei is still clutching the toy to her chest, but she’s leaning over the edge of her crib’s railing as well and nods her approval of her brother’s suggestion. She’s got a thumb in her mouth, and her head is tilted to the side.

“Kisses?” Shiro asks.

“Kisses,” Kamalei says around her thumb.

Feeling a little ridiculous, Shiro presses a kiss to the back of Lance’s head, then the side of his gaping mouth, and then to the small of his back. Dakota and Kamalei cheer him with each kiss that he plants on Lance’s body. Lance starts to stir, eyes blinking open, mouth twisting in a slight frown as he tries to figure out what’s going on.

“Kisses!” Dakota and Kamalei shout together, and Shiro kisses Lance between the shoulder blades, then along his spine, and by the time that he reaches Lance’s left hip, the man is waking.

“Mmm,” Lance murmurs. “Nice.”

“Papa!” Dakota shouts, and there’s a smile tugging at the corner of Lance’s mouth that Shiro cannot help but kiss.

“Is it time to get up?” Lance asks groggily.

Shiro nods. “I asked Alfor to wake you, but...” he points toward the little boy who’s still latched securely to Lance.

Lance laughs, and rolls over without dispelling the little boy. “Let me guess, it didn’t work out like you thought it would.”

Shiro shakes his head, eyes drawn toward Lance’s smooth belly. He’s filled out quite a bit in the past year, is no longer sickly thin, and whenever he eats, his belly develops a little bump that reminds Shiro of the first baby bump that had accompanied Lance’s pregnancy. Mouth dry, Shiro leans forward and kisses Lance’s belly. Lance cards his fingers through Shiro’s hair, letting him linger there for a little bit before sitting up and trying to wake Alfor -- again.

If this isn’t a little slice of heaven, Shiro doesn’t know what is.

**Author's Note:**

> Orang Gurita is Indonesian for Octopus People


End file.
